Tag: The Young Veins

Controversial statement incoming: I don’t like Panic! At The Disco. In their early days, I always felt like they were riding the coattails of bigger, better bands that they happened to be close with (coughcoughFallOutBoycough). Their music videos in particular were of the “desperate try hard” variety and evoked nothing in me but apathy, while the music itself was bland and derivative. In their current form, as essentially a Brendon Urie solo project, I find them acceptable but not fantastic.

However, in 2009, founding member Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker left the band in order to pursue a project of their own, The Young Veins. This project wasn’t just influenced by classic 60’s mod rock; they practically time-travelled back to that era in order to write their songs. As a huge fan of that era of rock and roll, discovering The Young Veins was as fantastic to me as The Monkees’s releasing Good Times was (which, incidentally, is a fantastic album as well and you chould go check it out right now).

Active only from 2009-2010, there sadly is not much to talk in regards to The Young Veins themselves. After a year of touring, Ryan Ross decided to try for a solo career, with Jon Walker announcing on Twitter in 2010 that the band would “be on hiatus for the time being.” In 2010. It’s 2017. They broke up. However, they did release an album called Take A Vacation!, which is what we’re looking at today! HA! I tricked you! This is an album review and you didn’t even know it!

But seriously, I adore this album and would like to share my thoughts on it in the proper Wombat fashion (which none of you know because I only ever wrote album reviews on Medium). So without any further ado, let’s work our way through the track listing.

The album kicks off with their single “Change”, which is about how, despite failing circumstances and runs of bad luck that can only be called karma, “some people never change.” The verses have a fast, punchy delivery that serves to emphasize Ross’s brilliant lyricism and a hook that slows the tempo down enough for you to get the message without killing the momentum. You’ll immediately notice the twang of the guitar on this song, which persists throughout the album and serves to sell their mid-60’s feel. It ends with a quick call to arms for “change”, and it’s gone just as quickly as it came.

“Take a Vacation!” is a Beach Boys-esque jam about how, well, the singer wants to take a vacation. It’s basically “Surfin’ Safari,” but better and with a really nice, intricate keyboard backing that I could listen to for eternity. Swallow me whole, liquid musical genius of Nick White. May I drift forever on the keys of your soul.

This is followed by “Cape Town,” a song about being in love with a woman in the titular town. The singer is clearly not about to spend the rest of his life with her, especially as she already has a husband “in prison.” Rather, it’s more about how he’s met with a rush of feelings for this woman while he’s in Cape Town. It’s very similar to the sort of temporary feelings that songs like Walk the Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance” are about, but here, rather than being excited, the singer is more melancholy, as if the feelings have continued to linger for a while after parting. It’s actually slightly haunting.

My favorite song on the entire album, however, is the Jon Walker-sung “Maybe I Will, Maybe I Won’t.” There’s not any particular reason for it being my favorite, though; it isn’t especially better than any other song, Jon’s vocals somewhat lack the same punch as Ryan’s, and I could not, for the life of me, tell you what it’s about. But it reminds me of the happy-go-lucky songs of the early Beatles or Herman’s Hermits, with a chorus so catchy I find myself singing it days after last hearing it. It just evokes a “fun” feeling inside of me that I can’t shake.

“Young Veins (Die Tonight” is another song about being young and in love and how confusing that can be. It’s rather well done, but rather than talk about the same kind of song again, let’s discuss this for a moment. Youthful love is such a fleeting thing. It’s easy to think you’ll be with your current partner for the rest of your life, but the reality is a lot less blissful. You’re both still changing, still learning, discovering new passions, discarding old ones, and 3-4 years from now, you might find each other to be complete strangers, where once you knew everything about each other. Not only that, but at such a young age, even though it feels like you know everything, you know so little. You need time and experience to learn what you need to hold a relationship together. It’s hard to sustain a serious one that begins so early in life. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it is very difficult. As Ryan says, “Is ‘young’ a word for dumb, a word for fun?” It’s a word for both. Being youthful does mean being dumb, no matter how intelligent you are. But it also means this is the time in your life when you can have the most fun. Don’t dwell on whether you’ll be with this person in 10 years. Again, as Ryan says, “have the time of (y)our lives every night.”

If you’re listening to it on vinyl, like a hipster (or me, and I’m *totally* not a hipster), Side 1 is closed out by another melancholic song, this one sung by Jon Walker again, “Everyone But You.” Being somebody who is infatuated with the idea of love, but never wants to get married, it almost feels as if this song was penned for me. It’s all about being in love with a woman, but she only loves him back in his dreams. And he tells himself and others that “love is all (he’s) really after,” but knows it’s not true. It’s a very honest song about being dishonest to yourself.

“The Other Girl” is short, bittersweet, and not necessarily to the point. As far as the musical aspect itself goes, it’s one of the better songs on the album. However, being a writer, my focus will always be on the lyrics within a song, which, at face value, are actually well written. However, like all songs on this album, there is a story here, which means I can criticize it for plot holes and unclear wording all day long. And I’m here to say right now: what is up with this second verse? In the first one, he’s clearly talking to someone whose boyfriend is cheating on her, telling her what’s up. But in the second verse, he almost feels personally offended by the boyfriend cheating. He’s not your boyfriend, Ryan! You don’t have to get so invested! Stop trying to figure out why he’s cheating! It’s probably because he’s a horny asshole, anyway, dude, it’s not that interesting!

Unfortunately, “The Other Girl” is probably the best song on the second half of this album. I divide albums into four distinct categories; top-heavy, back-heavy, garbage, and gold. “Take a Vacation!” is very top-heavy, putting all of its heavy-hitters up to the front to grab you, and then letting the more average songs run off their momentum. Actually, we could these kinds of albums “Baseball Albums.” There, that’s a better name.

Regardless, “Dangerous Blues” is the next song, which kind of exemplifies problems I have with slow songs in general. I don’t hate slow songs altogether, but what I’ve found is that they need to have something in them to punch, and “Dangerous Blues” has no punch. Also, ” I know now love is a dangerous blues” and all the variations used within the song is a meaningless line of gibberish that I expect to come from John McCrea, not Ryan Ross.

“Defiance” is, at least, a better song than the last. It’s a slower song as well, but each verse builds up to a powerful crooning of the last word, usually “defiance” but also “wanted” in one case. It’s what meant previously by a “punch.” It’s still not a great punch, but it is enough to keep you interested in the song, and the rest of it is very solid, if not particularly memorable. It’s probably the most average song on the album, which could be damning with faint praise, but that’s all I can really say about it.

Actually, now that I think about it, they just stuck all their slower, sadder songs on the second half, didn’t they? I prefer it when songs are paced across an album a bit better than this. It would probably help a lot if the album’s track listing was switched up a bit better, so that all the fast songs and all the slow songs weren’t back to back. “Lie to the Truth” here is a perfect example of this. On it’s own, it stands as a great song, with some of the best lyricism on the album. “I’ll lie to to the truth, ’cause you lied to it too” is one of the best lines Ryan Ross has ever penned, comparable even to some of Lindsey Buckingham’s work on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, but because of the never ending snoozefest on the second half, it can easily get lost. If this were to come after, say, “Maybe I Will, Maybe I Won’t,” this song would have so much more oomph, and I’m very saddened by this loss of potential. As it, keep your ears open for this one, because you don’t want to miss it.

The album closes out with “Heart of Mine,” which I quite honestly dislike. It’s a wall of indistinguishable noises, fighting to drown each other out. It’s like listening to Oasis, you’re gonna walk away with one bleeding ear. And the lyrics sound like a discarded Weezer track from Red Album, with a terrible platitude for the chorus and strangely specific lines in the chorus. “Girls on the equator never even compare?” Were we asking for a comparison? Hold on, let me scroll up… No, no we didn’t.

However, as poor as the second half is, as a whole, Take a Vacation! is still a really great album by a very talented band who should have done more. Ryan Ross is trying to get a solo career going, from what I’ve seen, but it’s all very bland and uninteresting. Some great minds need buffers in order to achieve their full potential, and that’s what Ryan had in Jon Walker. Their teamwork is what made this album so fantastic, and I really recommend you give it a listen so you can see what I mean.